Markets to Obama: shut up

With the stock market facing a historic meltdown, Americans could at least expect the president to be on time for a speech intended to inspire confidence. But those tuning in Monday at 1 p.m. eastern expecting to hear Mr. Obama address the rolling national financial crisis instead saw a live feed of casually dressed techies joking around in front of the presidential podium. After twenty five minutes of waiting for Mr. Obamato show up, the markets resumed tanking. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid four points a minute before Mr. Obama arrived. It gained a few points back at first, but ten minutes into his remarks the Dow broke through the 11,000 point floor. In the 20 minutes after he finished speaking the Dow slid 200 points. The market closed having lost 634 points. It was a vote of no confidence.

Mr. Obama did little more than repeat what his surrogates had said on talk shows over the weekend. He claimed that there really is no problem with American credit and that the United States was still one of the world’s safest investments. Of course it used to be number one, but no matter. Instead of restraining government spending, Mr. Obama said the solution would only come through “tax reform that will ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share” and Medicare reform. He made vague reference to some ideas to help with the debt problem, saying “these aren’t big government proposals.” Without program cuts government spending will continue to accelerate.